Systems and Methods for Identifying and Delivering Tailored Content Based Upon a Service Dialog

ABSTRACT

The present disclosure identifies and/or delivers tailored content based upon a service dialog. For example, the systems may receive a request for tailored content, facilitate a service dialog to obtain information related to the request, and communicate a plurality of tailored content based upon the information related to the request. Further, the systems may identify tailored content based upon a consumer profile, communicate the tailored content to a web client, and/or receive a selection of the tailored content. Further still, the systems may modify a magazine (e.g., content that is presented electronically) based upon tailored content.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of, claims priority to and thebenefit of, U.S. Ser. No. 13/827,935 filed on Mar. 14, 2013 and entitled“SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR IDENTIFYING AND DELIVERING TAILORED CONTENTBASED UPON A SERVICE DIALOG,” which is incorporated by reference hereinin its entirety.

BACKGROUND

1. Field

The present disclosure generally relates to electronic communication.More particularly, the present disclosure relates to tailored electroniccommunication.

2. Background

Many consumers interact on a frequent basis with a variety of systemsand organizations. For example, it is common for many consumers tointeract with a variety of merchants and/or merchant systems. However,although some merchants may attempt to collect and/or analyze a varietyof purchasing information associated with their customers, thesemerchants are often unaware of the purchasing activities of theircustomers with other merchants and/or across a wider array of productsand services. In other words, although merchants may attempt to collectdata about their customers, many merchants nevertheless obtain, at best,only a fractured and incomplete picture of the preferences and interestsof their customers. Due to this shortage of merchant information aboutconsumers, many consumers find little or no assistance in their dailyshopping activities. For example, a consumer who is in the mood to eatItalian food may be required to perform a search for a restaurant thatserves Italian food, and this search may take several minutes of theconsumer's lunch hour. Although many consumers may be interested inreducing their shopping and/or search burdens, consumers are oftenrequired to participate quite actively, and at some expenditure of time,in these activities. Thus, a system which reduces these expenditures isdesirable, preferably in a manner that tailored to individual consumerinterests and needs.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure includes systems, methods, and articles ofmanufacture for identifying and/or delivering tailored content basedupon a service dialog. In various embodiments, the methods describedherein can be performed by a variety of computer-based systems,including computer-based systems for processing service dialogs. Suchsystems can comprise and/or operate with any non-transitory, tangible,computer-readable storage medium.

Therefore, in various embodiments, the systems described herein mayreceive a request for tailored content, facilitate a service dialog toobtain information related to the request, and communicate a pluralityof tailored content based upon the information related to the request.Further, in various embodiments, the systems may identify tailoredcontent based upon a consumer profile, communicate the tailored contentto a web client, and/or receive a selection of the tailored content.Further still, in various embodiments, the systems may modify a magazine(e.g., content that is presented electronically) based upon tailoredcontent.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may compriseidentifying tailored content, communicating the tailored content to aweb client, and receiving a selection of the tailored content. Tailoredcontent may be based upon a consumer profile, and a payment may beprocessed in association with the tailored content in response, forexample, to the receiving the tailored content. The methods may furthercomprise identifying tailored content comprising a plurality of tailoredoptions, identifying the tailored content based upon a reminderassociated with a consumer, identifying, the tailored content inresponse to a request by a consumer, and/or communicating informationassociated with the tailored content to the web client.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may compriseidentifying tailored content based upon a consumer profile, andmodifying a magazine based upon the tailored content, wherein themagazine comprises content that is presented electronically. The methodsmay further comprise communicating the magazine to a web client,identifying a tailored option based upon the consumer profile,communicating the tailored option to a web client, updating the consumerprofile based upon a selection of the tailored option, updating theconsumer profile based upon a selection of the tailored content, and/orreceiving a selection of the tailored option.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may compriseidentifying tailored content, communicating the tailored content to aweb client, receiving a selection of the tailored content, receiving amessage based service dialog request, and facilitating the message basedservice dialog request. The methods may further comprise receivinginformation related to the message based service dialog request,communicating a plurality of tailored options based upon the messagebased service dialog request, storing the tailored content to a networkcloud, transferring the tailored content to a magazine based servicedialog, and/or updating a consumer profile based upon the receiving theselection of the tailored content. The service dialog is in a questionand answer format.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may comprisecollecting a brand equity metric, collecting a revenue metric, analyzingat least one of the brand equity metric and the revenue metric todemonstrate a business impact associated with the computer-based system,facilitating sharing of tailored content between consumers, forwarding atailored option from a first consumer to a second consumer, identifyingtailored content for a consumer based upon a consumer profile of theconsumer and a consumer profile of a consumer in the consumer's socialnetwork, and/or linking a first consumer to a second consumer as part ofa social network. The brand equity metric may comprise at least one of:a number of downloads associated with an application for facilitating aservice dialog, a feedback associated with the application, a number ofrewards points awarded to a service dialog customer, and a social mediametric associated with the application. The revenue metric may compriseat least one of: a number of service dialog requests associated with aservice dialog customer, a transaction history associated with a servicedialog customer, a tenure of membership associated with a service dialogcustomer, a number of service dialog customers, and a cost associatedwith the computer-based system.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may comprisegenerating a consumer profile, identifying tailored content based uponthe consumer profile, and/or communicating the tailored content to theconsumer based upon a service dialog request. The methods may furthercomprise generating the consumer profile based upon a transactionhistory of the consumer, updating the consumer profile based upon aselection of the tailored content by the consumer, generating theconsumer profile based upon merchant data, updating the consumer profilein response to a request by a consumer to update the consumer profile,storing the tailored content a network cloud, and/or facilitatingpayment for an item associated with the tailored content.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may furthercomprise receiving a plurality of service dialog requests, and/orprioritizing the plurality of service dialog requests based upon anurgency associated with each of the plurality of service dialogrequests. The methods may further comprise prioritizing a service dialogrequest associated with an item that will occur first in time over aservice dialog request associated with an item that will occur later intime, processing the plurality of service dialog requests based upon theurgency associated with each of the plurality of service dialogrequests, prioritizing a message based service dialog request over atleast one of an application based service dialog request and a magazinebased service dialog request, facilitating payment for an item relatedto at least one of the service dialog requests, identifying tailoredcontent based upon at least one of the service dialog requests, and/orcommunicating tailored content to a web client in response to one of theplurality of service dialog requests.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may comprisecommunicating a payment option for selection based upon a servicedialog, receiving a selection of the payment option, and/orfacilitating, by the computer-based system and in response to thereceiving, a transaction with a transaction account. The methods mayfurther comprise retrieving the transaction account for processing thetransaction from a consumer profile, receiving a payment request from amerchant system, remitting payment to the merchant system, processingthe transaction, and/or communicating the transaction account to amerchant system. The payment option may comprise an interface optionwhich is displayed by a web client and may be associated with an itemassociated with a tailored option communicated based upon a consumerprofile.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may comprisedisplaying, by a first computer-based system for facilitating a servicedialog, tailored content, communicating, by the first computer-basedsystem and to a second computer-based system for processing the servicedialog, a selection of the tailored content, and/or displaying, by thefirst computer-based system, a reminder associated with the tailoredcontent. The methods may further comprise communicating, by the firstcomputer-based system and to the second-computer-based system, a servicedialog request in response to the reminder, displaying, by the firstcomputer-based system, a payment option in association with the tailoredcontent, receiving, by the first computer-based system and from thesecond computer-based system, a tailored option in response to theservice dialog request, communicating, by the first computer-basedsystem and to the second computer-based system, a selection of thetailored option, retrieving, by the first computer-based system, thetailored content from a network cloud, and/or communicating, by thefirst computer-based system and to the second computer-based system, aphysical location of a web client.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein may comprisecommunicating a service dialog request, receiving tailored content basedupon the service dialog request, and/or communicating a selection of thetailored content. The methods may further comprise displaying a paymentoption in association with the tailored content, communicating, inresponse to a question that is based upon the service dialog request, ananswer to the question, communicating a reminder based upon a selectionof the tailored content, and/or communicating a physical location of thecomputer-based system. The service dialog request may comprise a requestfor tailored content. The tailored content may comprise a plurality oftailored options.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features and advantages of the present disclosure will become moreapparent from the detailed description set forth below when taken inconjunction with the drawings. The left-most digit of a reference numberidentifies the drawing in which the reference number first appears.

FIG. 1 shows a logical representation of content in accordance withvarious embodiments.

FIG. 2 shows a logical representation of a consumer profile inaccordance with various embodiments.

FIG. 3 shows an exemplary system diagram in accordance with variousembodiments.

FIG. 4 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for generating aconsumer profile.

FIG. 5 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for identifyingtailored content based upon a message based service dialog.

FIG. 6 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for identifyingtailored content based upon an application based service dialog.

FIG. 7 shows a flowchart depicting an exemplary process for identifyingtailored content based upon a magazine based service dialog.

FIG. 8 shows a screenshot depicting an exemplary message based servicedialog.

FIG. 9A shows a screenshot depicting an exemplary application basedservice dialog.

FIG. 9B shows a screenshot depicting an exemplary application basedservice dialog.

FIG. 9C shows a screenshot depicting an exemplary application basedservice dialog.

FIG. 10A shows a screenshot depicting an exemplary magazine basedservice dialog.

FIG. 10B shows a screenshot depicting an exemplary magazine basedservice dialog.

FIG. 10C shows a screenshot depicting an exemplary magazine basedservice dialog.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems in which consumers participate in service dialogs to receivetailored content are disclosed. The detailed description of exemplaryembodiments herein makes reference to the accompanying drawings, whichshow the exemplary embodiments by way of illustration. While theseexemplary embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable thoseskilled in the art to practice the disclosure, it should be understoodthat other embodiments may be realized and that logical and mechanicalchanges may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of thedisclosure. Thus, the detailed description herein is presented forpurposes of illustration only and not of limitation. For example, thesteps recited in any of the method or process descriptions may beexecuted in any order and are not limited to the order presented.Moreover, any of the functions or steps may be outsourced to orperformed by one or more third parties. Furthermore, any reference tosingular includes plural embodiments, and any reference to more than onecomponent may include a singular embodiment.

For illustrative purposes, and with reference to FIG. 1, a logicalrepresentation of content 102 is shown. In various embodiments, content102 may comprise content metadata 104. As described elsewhere herein,content metadata 104 may provide information about content (e.g., one ormore attributes or characteristics associated with the content). Forexample, content metadata 104 may indicate that content 102 (which maycomprise, for example, an advertisement or an offer associated with aparticular restaurant) is associated with “Italian food,” a particular“Street address,” “Vegetarian options,” and/or a particular “Price.”

In various embodiments, a system may “identify” tailored content bycreating content, analyzing content in relation to and/or in associationwith (e.g., based upon) a consumer profile, looking content up and/orlocating or identifying content in a database, flat file, and/or lookuptable, any combination of these, and/or the like. Moreover, in variousembodiments, tailored content may be identified, and a consumer profilemay be generated, as described herein as well as in U.S. applicationSer. No. 13/488,285, filed Jun. 4, 2012, and entitled SYSTEMS ANDMETHODS FOR DELIVERING TAILORED CONTENT BASED UPON A CONSUMER PROFILE,which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

A “consumer profile” or “consumer profile data” may comprise anyinformation or data about a consumer that describes a preference and/orinterest of the consumer. For illustrative purposes, a logicalrepresentation of an exemplary consumer profile or consumer profile datais depicted at FIG. 2. However, FIG. 2 should be regarded asillustrative only. Consumer profile data may be organized in other ways,all of which are contemplated by the present disclosure. Therefore, asshown, consumer profile 202 may be organized as a set of relationaldata, and this data may be saved, for example, in a database structure(e.g., a consumer profile database). Thus, consumer profile 202 maycomprise one or more categories or preferences (e.g., preferences204-208), each of which may be related to an item and/or content inwhich a consumer may have an interest. As also shown, each preference204-208 may comprise one or more subcategories or subpreferences (e.g.,subpreferences 204 a-c, 206 a-c, and/or 208 a-c). Each subpreference maydescribe an additional feature associated with each preference and/or amore detailed preference. Thus, for example, where a preference 204describes a consumer's lodging preferences, a first subpreference 204 amay describe a preference associated with a room type (e.g., smoking,non-smoking, bed size/type, etc.). Similarly, a second subpreference 204b may describe a preference associated with checkout (e.g., latecheckout, early checkout, etc.), while a third subpreference 204 c maydescribe a consumer's preferences associated with spa amenities (e.g.,massage, pool, etc.)

A consumer profile may include certain personally identifyinginformation (or “PII”) and/or other information associated with aconsumer. However, in various embodiments, a consumer profile may notinclude PII. Where a consumer profile includes PII, however, a consumermay leverage a consumer profile, for example, to automatically enterdata in a web based form and/or to facilitate processing of a purchasetransaction.

A consumer profile may be based upon a variety of data. For example, aconsumer profile may be based upon data that is received, culled,collected, and/or derived from a variety of sources, such as aconsumer's transaction history, data associated with or available via aconsumer's social networking profile (e.g., a consumer's Facebook®profile), data associated with a customer's physical location, and/orother publicly and/or privately available sources of information about aconsumer. In various embodiments, a consumer profile may not be basedupon such data, unless a consumer opts in or requests that such data beused.

Further, a consumer profile may be based upon data contributed by aconsumer, a merchant, a third party, and/or an SDE (as describedherein). In various embodiments, such data may comprise, for example, aconsumer's personal information, e.g., a consumer's date of birth, aconsumer's residence information, an address of the consumer's work, aspecific preference associated with the consumer (e.g., a preference fora certain type of vacation, such as a preference for a tropicalvacation), a website in which the consumer is interested, and the like.Further, in various embodiments, a consumer may contribute data towardsa consumer profile by way of a form and/or questionnaire, such as, forexample, a web-based form or questionnaire.

With further regard to the types of data a consumer may contribute, ingeneral, a consumer may contribute any information that the consumerwould like to serve as a basis for a consumer profile. For instance, aconsumer may contribute location data (e.g., data associated with aglobal positioning system, a home address, a work address, familylocation data, data about a consumer's most shopped or favorite shoppinglocations, data about a consumer's most visited or favorite places),data associated with a consumer's favorite websites, digitaldestinations, or magazines (e.g., blogs, news websites, shoppingwebsites, research websites, financial websites, etc.), personal data(e.g., email addresses, physical addresses, phone numbers, ageinformation, income information, expenses information, etc.), dataassociated with a consumer's status or mode of travel (e.g., vacationdata, business data, personal data, airline data, lodging data, etc.),data associated with a consumer's favorite items (e.g., food,restaurants, groceries, electronics, music, gaming, clothing types,hobbies, fitness, etc.), and the like.

Moreover, with respect to the types of data a merchant may contribute,in various embodiments, exemplary data may include online trackingcookie data, web beacon data, web tracking data, web packet trace data,digital fingerprint data, clickstream data, purchase or transactionhistory data, data entered by a consumer in a web based form, datapurchased by the merchant about the consumer, social networking data,banking and/or credit card data, stock keeping unit (“SKU”) data,transactional and/or budget data, coupon data, retail data (e.g., itemspurchased, wish lists, etc.), data from third party personal dataaggregators, search engine data, and/or any other data which themerchant may have in its possession or to which the merchant may gainaccess.

A consumer may specify that a consumer profile may be based upon certaindata, but that the profile should not be based upon other data. Forexample, a consumer may specify that the consumer's profile may be basedupon data associated with the consumer's transaction history, but maynot be based upon data culled from the consumer's social networkingprofile.

As used herein, a “service dialog” may comprise any communicationbetween a consumer and a service dialog system (as described herein)and/or a “service dialog agent.” As used herein, a service dialog agentmay be an individual, such as, for example, a consumer servicerepresentative. In various embodiments, a service dialog agent mayinterface with a service dialog system to facilitate and/or participatein a service dialog. Moreover, for simplicity, as used herein, a servicedialog system and a service dialog agent may be referred to,individually or collectively, as a “service dialog entity,” or “SDE.”

Accordingly, a service dialog may comprise a communication between aconsumer and an SDE (e.g., a service dialog system and/or a servicedialog agent) in which the SDE identifies and/or delivers tailoredcontent (as described herein) to the consumer. In various embodiments, aservice dialog may include (and/or begin with) a request by a consumerfor a service dialog (e.g., a request by a consumer for tailoredcontent). However, a service dialog may not include such a request.Rather, a service dialog may be initiated by a service dialog entitybased upon a consumer profile and/or based upon another criterion, suchas a reminder, as described herein. Thus, in various embodiments,tailored content may be identified for and/or delivered to a consumer inthe absence of a specific request for such content.

In general, tailored content may be identified for and/or delivered toconsumers based upon a service dialog and/or a consumer profile. Forexample, tailored content may be identified based upon an analysisperformed by an SDE (e.g., a system owned by a transaction accountissuer, such as American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc.,which maintains closed loop or internal data, as described elsewhereherein). Further, in various embodiments, the analysis may be based uponcontent supplied or transmitted to a SDE by a merchant system.

Accordingly, and with reference to FIG. 3, an exemplary system 300 foraggregating consumer profile data and/or identifying tailored content isdisclosed. In various embodiments, system 300 may comprise a web client302, a network 304, a service dialog system 306, and/or a merchantsystem 308.

Web client 302 may include any device (e.g., a personal computer, amobile communications device, and the like) which communicates via anynetwork, for example such as those discussed herein. Web client 302 mayinclude one or more browsers or browser applications and/or applicationprograms, including browser applications comprising Internet browsingsoftware installed within a computing unit or a system to conduct onlinetransactions and/or communications. For example, in various embodiments,web client 302 may include (and run) MICROSOFT® INTERNET EXPLORER®,Mozilla Firefox, GOOGLE® CHROME®, Apple Safari, and/or any softwarepackage available for browsing the Internet.

A computing unit or system may take the form of a computer or set ofcomputers, although other types of computing units or systems may beused, including tablets, laptops, notebooks, hand held computers,personal digital assistants, cellular phones, smart phones, set-topboxes, workstations, computer-servers, main frame computers,mini-computers, PC servers, pervasive computers, network sets ofcomputers, personal computers, such as IPADS®, iMACs, and MacBooks,kiosks, terminals, point of sale (POS) devices and/or terminals,televisions, GPS receivers, in-dash vehicle displays, and/or any otherdevice capable of receiving data over a network. The computing unit ofthe web client 302 may be further equipped with an Internet browserconnected to the Internet or an intranet using standard dial-up, cable,DSL or any other Internet protocol known in the art. Transactionsoriginating at a web client 302 may pass through a firewall in order toprevent unauthorized access from users of other networks. Further,additional firewalls may be deployed between the varying components ofsystem 300 to further enhance security.

Web client 302 may or may not be in direct contact with an applicationserver. For example, web client 302 may access the services of anapplication server through another server and/or hardware component,which may have a direct or indirect connection to an Internet server.For example, web client 302 may communicate with an application servervia a load balancer and/or a web server. In an exemplary embodiment,access is through a network or the Internet through acommercially-available web-browser software package.

Web client 302 may further include an operating system (e.g., WINDOWS®NT/95/98/2000/XP/Vista/7/8/CE/Mobile, OS2, UNIX, Linux, Solaris, MacOS,PalmOS, etc.) as well as various conventional support software anddrivers typically associated with computers. Web client 302 may be in ahome or business environment with access to a network. Web client 302may implement security protocols such as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) andTransport Layer Security (TLS). Web client 302 may further implementseveral application layer protocols including http, https, ftp, andsftp.

Network 304 may include any electronic communications system or methodwhich incorporates hardware and/or software components (e.g. a “cloud”or “cloud computing” system, as described herein). Communication amongparties via network 304 may be accomplished through any suitablecommunication channels, such as, for example, a telephone network, anextranet, an intranet, Internet, point of interaction device (point ofsale device, personal digital assistant (e.g., iPhone®, Palm Pilot®,Blackberry®), cellular phone, kiosk, etc.), online communications,satellite communications, off-line communications, wirelesscommunications, transponder communications, local area network (LAN),wide area network (WAN), virtual private network (VPN), networked orlinked devices, keyboard, mouse and/or any suitable communication ordata input modality. Moreover, although the system 300 is frequentlydescribed herein as being implemented with TCP/IP communicationsprotocols, the system may also be implemented using IPX, Appletalk,IP-6, NetBIOS, OSI, any tunneling protocol (e.g. IPsec, SSH), or anynumber of existing or future protocols. If network 304 is in the natureof a public network, such as the Internet, it may be advantageous topresume network 304 to be insecure and open to eavesdroppers. Specificinformation related to the protocols, standards, and applicationsoftware utilized in connection with the Internet is generally known tothose skilled in the art and, as such, need not be detailed herein. See,for example, DILIP NAIK, INTERNET STANDARDS AND PROTOCOLS (1998); JAVA 2COMPLETE, various authors, (Sybex 1999); DEBORAH RAY AND ERIC RAY,MASTERING HTML 4.0 (1997); and LOSHIN, TCP/IP CLEARLY EXPLAINED (1997)and DAVID GOURLEY AND BRIAN TOTTY, HTTP, THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE (2002),the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

The various system components may be independently and separately orcollectively suitably coupled to network 304 via data links whichinclude, for example, a connection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP)over the local loop as is typically used in connection with standardmodem communication, cable modem, Dish networks, ISDN, DigitalSubscriber Line (DSL), or various wireless communication methods, see,e.g., GILBERT HELD, UNDERSTANDING DATA COMMUNICATIONS (1996), which ishereby incorporated by reference. It is noted that network 304 may beimplemented variously, such as, for example, as an interactivetelevision (ITV) network. Moreover, this disclosure contemplates theuse, sale or distribution of any goods, services or information over anynetwork having similar functionality described herein.

As used herein, a “cloud” or “cloud computing” may describe a model forenabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool ofconfigurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage,applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and releasedwith minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Cloudcomputing may include location-independent computing, whereby sharedservers provide resources, software, and data to computers and otherdevices on demand. For more information regarding cloud computing, seethe NIST's (National Institute of Standards and Technology) definitionof cloud computing, which is hereby incorporated by reference in itsentirety.

Service dialog system 306 may comprise hardware and/or softwareconfigured to generate a consumer profile and/or identify tailoredcontent based upon a consumer profile and/or a variety of othercriteria, as described herein. Service dialog system 306 may thus, invarious embodiments, process and/or facilitate a service dialog. Invarious embodiments, service dialog system 306 may be associated with atransaction account issuer (e.g., American Express, Visa, Mastercard,etc). Moreover, in certain embodiments (e.g., where service dialogsystem 306 is associated with American Express), the system 306 maycomprise a variety of “closed loop” transaction data (or internal data)associated with a consumer (e.g., as described herein). In variousembodiments, service dialog system 306 may comprise a three-tieredserver architecture. For example, service dialog system 306 may comprisea web server, an application server, a consumer profile database, and/ora content database.

A consumer profile database may comprise hardware and/or softwareconfigured to store data. For example, a profile database may comprise aserver appliance running a suitable server operating system (e.g.,MICROSOFT® Internet Information Services® or, “IIS”) and having databasesoftware (e.g., ORACLE® installed thereon. In various embodiments, aconsumer profile database may store a consumer profile.

A content database may comprise hardware and/or software configured tostore data. For example, a content database may comprise a serverappliance running a suitable server operating system (e.g., MICROSOFT®Internet Information Services® or, “IIS”) and having database software(e.g., ORACLE®) installed thereon. In various embodiments, a contentdatabase may store content, which may, for example, be uploaded to thedatabase by one or more merchant systems 308.

Merchant system 308 may comprise any hardware and/or software associatedwith and/or owned and/or operated by a merchant, as described above. Invarious embodiments, merchant system 308 may comprise a web client, aweb server, and/or an application server. Merchant system 308 maycommunicate over network 304. In various embodiments, as described,merchant system 308 may communicate content to service dialog system306.

Referring broadly now to FIGS. 4-10, the process flows, logicalrepresentations, and/or screen shots depicted are merely embodiments andare not intended to limit the scope of the disclosure. For example, thesteps recited in any of the method or process descriptions may beexecuted in any order and are not limited to the order presented. Itwill be appreciated that the following description makes appropriatereferences not only to the steps depicted in FIGS. 4-10 but also to thevarious system components and/or logical representations as describedabove with reference to FIGS. 1-3.

With reference now to FIG. 4, a process 400 for generating a consumerprofile is described. In general, a consumer profile may be based upon avariety of data, as described herein. Thus, as shown, service dialogsystem 306 may receive data (step 402). For example, service dialogsystem 306 may receive from a consumer (e.g., a consumer operating a webclient 302 to fill out a web-based form or questionnaire) a particularpreference or interest of the consumer (e.g., an interest in a tropicalvacation), and/or service dialog system 306 may receive or collect dataassociated with a consumer's transaction history, from which servicedialog system 306 may determine, in various embodiments, that theconsumer has a particular preference or interest (e.g., because theconsumer's transaction history shows a pattern of vacationing inEuropean locales during the springtime, service dialog system 306 mayinfer or determine based upon the transaction history that the consumeris interested in vacationing in such locales during the springtime).

A consumer may contribute data to a consumer profile, in variousembodiments, by registering to receive a consumer account and/orauthenticating (e.g., using a standard two factor authenticationprocess, such as a username and password) to an existing consumeraccount. A consumer account may give access to and/or be associated witha consumer profile. Thus, in various embodiments, a consumer mayregister for and/or authenticate to a consumer account, and, having doneso, the consumer may contribute data. In various embodiments, servicedialog system 306 may perform the authentication and/or validate theconsumer account.

Likewise, a merchant and/or a merchant system 308 (which may both bereferred to herein, for simplicity, as merchant system 308) maycontribute data, in various embodiments, toward a consumer preference ina variety of ways. For example, merchant system 308 may register toreceive a merchant account and/or authenticate (e.g., using a standardtwo factor authentication process, such as a username and password) toan existing merchant account. A merchant account may permit merchantsystem 308 to transmit data associated with a consumer and/or contentassociated with the merchant (e.g., advertising and/or offer informationassociated with the products and services of the merchant) to servicedialog system 306.

Thus, in various embodiments, merchant system 308 may register forand/or authenticate to a merchant account prior to transmitting dataassociated with a consumer. In various embodiments, service dialogsystem 306 may perform the authentication and/or validate the merchantaccount. Further, in various embodiments, merchant system 308 may notregister for and/or authenticate to a merchant account. Rather, merchantsystem 308 may simply transmit data associated with a consumer toservice dialog system 306 (e.g., without authenticating to a merchantaccount).

Having received data, service dialog system 306 may generate a consumerprofile based upon the data (step 404). In various embodiments, aconsumer profile may be generated by analyzing the data to identify ordetermine one or more patterns and/or preferences in and/or associatedwith the data. Although innumerable patterns and/or preferences may beidentified, several examples are shown below to illustrate a consumerprofile generation process.

Accordingly, and for example, service dialog system 306 may generate aconsumer profile based upon a consumer's transaction account history(e.g., as described herein) to determine that a threshold percentage oramount of a consumer's purchases were made with respect to (or may beassociated with) a particular consumer preference and/or subpreference.More particularly, service provider system 306 may, in variousembodiments, determine that a threshold percentage or amount of aconsumer's purchases may be associated with a consumer preference, suchas “Travel,” which may indicate that a consumer spends or has spent inthe past (e.g., across the consumer's total transactional history duringa specified time period), for example, at least a threshold percentageon purchases related to the consumer preference, and/or that theconsumer has spent at least a threshold amount on items related to theparticular consumer preference (e.g., where the preference is “Travel,”related items may comprise vacations, hotel reservations, guidebooks,etc.)

Service dialog system 306 may similarly determine, for example, that aconsumer has contributed data associated with a specific interest orpreference (e.g., via a web-based form and/or questionnaire). Forexample, system 306 may determine that a consumer has specificallycontributed an interest in a consumer preference such as “Italian food”and/or items related to Italian food. Where system 306 identifies aspecific interest, system 306 may simply add the interest to a consumerprofile (e.g., as a preference and/or subpreference).

Further, in various embodiments, service dialog system 306 may determinethat a consumer often browses to websites associated with a consumerpreference such as “Travel,” and/or service dialog system 306 may“scrape,” parse, and/or index a website to identify one or more consumerpreferences which may be associated with the website (e.g., scraping atravel magazine website may yield preferences for travel, scuba diving,tropical vacations, etc.)

Thus, service dialog system 306 may generate a consumer profile basedupon a variety of data. Additionally, in various embodiments, servicedialog system 306 may delete any data relied upon for the generation ofa consumer profile. Thus, consumers may be assured that their privacy isprotected and that only their consumer profile is stored by servicedialog system 306. In addition, a consumer profile may comprise summarydata and/or data that is not personally identifying. For example, aconsumer profile may comprise an age range of a consumer as opposed to aspecific age of the consumer. Thus, a consumer's privacy may be furtherprotected where a consumer profile is limited to summary ornon-personally identifying information.

In various embodiments, service dialog system 306 may further rankconsumer preferences (step 406). For instance, service dialog system 306may rank one or more consumer preferences and/or subpreferences basedupon one or more rules. In various embodiments, service dialog system306 may rank consumer preferences according to a percentage and/or anamount of spending associated with a consumer preference (e.g., apreference associated with a highest percentage and/or spending amountmay be ranked as a highest or most significant preference, while apreference associated with a lower percentage and/or spending amount maybe ranked as a lower or less significant preference). Similarly, invarious embodiments, a consumer may contribute a consumer preference(e.g., via a form or questionnaire) as well as associate a ranking(e.g., highest to lowest, a number of stars or thumbs up, a numericalscale, and the like) with a contributed consumer preference.

Moreover, in various embodiments (e.g., where a consumer preference isbased upon a behavior of a consumer), a consumer preference may beranked based upon, for example, a frequency of the behavior. Forinstance, a ranking for a preference associated with a particularwebsite may be based upon a frequency with which a consumer browses toor visits the website (e.g., more frequently browsed and/or visitedwebsites may be ranked higher or as more significant than lessfrequently browsed or visited websites).

Further, in various embodiments, a preference and/or subpreference maybe weighted (step 406). For instance, service dialog system 306 mayassociate a preference and/or subpreference with a weight indicating howstrongly a consumer prefers content (and/or an item) associated with thepreference or subpreference. For example, service dialog system 306 maycalculate a weight to associate with the preference and/or subpreferencebased upon all or a portion of data upon which the preference and/orsubpreference is based. Thus, where for example a consumer's transactionhistory suggests a preference for tropical vacations, system 306 maydetermine that, based upon the consumer's transaction history (and/orother data), a weight of 75% should be associated with the preferencefor tropical vacations. A weight of 75% may indicate, for example, thatsystem 306 estimates and/or calculates that the consumer will accept anoffer related to a tropical vacation 75% of the time and/or that theconsumer's browsing history indicates that the consumer clicks on orselects content related to tropical vacations approximately 75% of thetime. Further, where a consumer receives content based upon a weightedpreference, the consumer's reaction to the content (e.g., whether theconsumer accepted an offer tailored and delivered to the consumer basedupon the preference) may be factored back into the weighting—e.g., theweighting may be reduced in response to an event that suggests theconsumer is not interested in the content (e.g., the consumer does notselect or click on the content, the consumer does not accept an offer,etc.), and/or the weighting may be increased or remain unaffected by anevent that suggests that the consumer is interested in the content(e.g., selection of the content, acceptance of an offer). Thus, invarious embodiments, system 306 may generate a consumer profile, rank,and/or weight one or more member preferences and/or subpreferencescomprising the consumer profile.

In various embodiments, a consumer may update or maintain an existingconsumer profile (step 408). More particularly, in various embodiments,a consumer may authenticate to an existing consumer account to specify,for example, that a particular data source should not serve as a basisfor a consumer profile and/or that a particular data type should notserve as a basis for a consumer profile. Thus, for example, a consumermay specify that a transaction history associated with the consumershould not serve as a basis for generating a consumer profile and/orthat a website should not serve as a basis for generating a consumerprofile. A consumer may further adjust the types of data (as describedelsewhere herein) underlying a consumer profile. For example, a consumermay indicate that the consumer's transaction history that occurs on theweekend is not representative of the consumer's interests during theweek and that the consumer's weekend transaction history shouldtherefore be excluded from the data used to generate the consumer'sprofile. Further still, a consumer may update a consumer profile toexclude a preference and/or subpreference from the consumer's profile.For example, a consumer who only likes to travel during the summertimemay exclude a preference and/or subpreference for travel during thewintertime from the consumer's profile.

With reference now to FIGS. 5-11, processes and exemplary screenshotsfor delivering tailored content based upon a service dialog are shown.More particularly, as described herein, FIGS. 5-11 relate to processesfor identifying and/or delivering tailored content based upon a varietyof types of service dialogs. For example, as described herein, a servicedialog may comprise a message based service dialog, an application basedservice dialog, and/or a magazine based service dialog. Moreover,although the processes and screenshots depicted in FIGS. 5-11 are shownindividually, these processes and/or screenshots may be variouslycombined. For example, as described herein, process 500 for deliveringtailored content based upon a message based service dialog may becombined with process 600 for delivering tailored content based upon anapplication based service dialog and/or process 700 for deliveringtailored content based upon a magazine based service dialog.

Accordingly, with attention to FIGS. 5 and 8, a process 500 and ascreenshot 800 are shown for identifying and/or delivering tailoredcontent based upon a message based service dialog. A message basedservice dialog may, in various embodiments, comprise a service dialogwhich takes place, in full or in part, via a messaging feature (e.g., atext messaging feature) associated with a web client 302. As shown, aservice dialog entity or SDE (e.g., as described above, a service dialogsystem 306 and/or a service dialog agent) may receive a request for aservice dialog from a consumer (step 502), which may be based upon aninterest of the consumer in receiving tailored content related to aparticular item.

In general, a service dialog, such as a message based service dialog,may be related to any item and/or content in which a consumer may havean interest. However, to illustrate, a consumer may request, forinstance, a service dialog based upon an interest in receiving tailoredcontent related to a restaurant or dining. For example, a consumer mayrequest a service dialog by messaging a request such as, “Lunch for2@12:00 pm, someplace quiet for client meeting.” An SDE may receiveand/or process the request and, if necessary, inquire via the servicedialog (e.g., via a message) into specific information associated withthe request (step 504). For example, an SDE may inquire whether theconsumer would prefer a particular meeting location, e.g., a locationthat is close to the consumer's office (which, as described herein, maybe included, and available to the SDE, as part of a consumer profile).The consumer may, in various embodiments and for example, reply “Yes” or“No” to the location inquiry. The SDE may continue with the servicedialog to further inquire, for example, into any relevant dietaryrestrictions. For example, the SDE may transmit a message to theconsumer's web client 302 similar to the following message: “Are thereany dietary restrictions?” The consumer may reply, again via web client302, with a particular dietary restriction, a “Yes,” a “No,” and thelike. Where the consumer answers, “Yes,” of course, the SDE may inquireinto the particular restriction (and the consumer may reply, forexample, that the consumer is a vegetarian). Thus, an SDE may facilitateand/or process a service dialog with a consumer to gather informationsufficient to identify content tailored to the consumer's request (ortailored content).

In addition, in various embodiments, a service dialog may be facilitatedand/or processed by a service dialog agent. Likewise, in variousembodiments, a service dialog, as described above, may be facilitatedand/or processed by a service dialog system 306. Further, in variousembodiments, a service dialog may be facilitated and/or processed by aservice dialog agent working in combination with a service dialog system306. Where a service dialog system 306 facilitates and/or processes aservice dialog (either individually or in combination with an agent),the system 306 may provide access to a consumer profile and/or gainaccess to a consumer profile, which may be used by the SDE (as describedherein) to facilitate and/or process the service dialog. For example,the consumer profile may, as described above, include a work address,which the SDE may use to locate a restaurant that is close to theconsumer's work address. Similarly, the consumer profile may include apreference for Italian food and/or a preference as to price (see FIG.2), which the SDE may use as described herein. Thus, a consumer profilemay inform a service dialog such that an SDE may utilize the consumerprofile to identify tailored content.

With continuing regard to identification of tailored content, an SDE mayidentify, in various embodiments, tailored content by comparing aconsumer profile and/or the additional information gathered as a resultof a service dialog to content (e.g., a number of individuals associatedwith a request, a time associated with the request, a locationassociated with the request, and dietary preferences associated with therequest, as shown above) (step 506). An SDE may further transmittailored content to the consumer (step 508).

Where an SDE identifies content based upon a consumer profile, the SDEmay identify content, for example, (e.g., content 102, as shown atFIG. 1) based upon a determination that content metadata 104 matches orsubstantially matches a preference and/or subpreference of a consumerprofile. For example, an SDE may determine that content metadata (whichmay indicate that content 102 is associated with Italian food and aparticular price) matches or substantially matches a preference and/orsubpreference associated with a consumer profile (see, e.g., consumerprofile 202 at FIG. 2, which includes a preference and subpreference forItalian food at a particular price). Further, where an SDE identifiescontent based upon information obtained as a result of a service dialog,the SDE may, in various embodiments, identify content based upon adetermination that content metadata, as described herein, matches orsubstantially matches the information obtained from the service dialog.For example, with respect to the foregoing example, an SDE may determinethat certain content 102 is associated with and/or located within acertain distance of a particular street address (e.g., a work address ofa consumer) and/or associated with a particular dietary restriction(e.g., vegetarian dining options). Thus, an SDE may identify tailoredcontent based upon a comparison of content to a consumer profile and/orinformation obtained during a service dialog.

Accordingly, with continued attention to the example provided above, inresponse to a request from a consumer, an SDE may message a consumerwith information related to a plurality of tailored restaurant offers oroptions, such as, a first option “A. Odeon, 12:00 PM,” a second offer“B. Tiny, 12:00 PM,” and/or a third offer “C. Patio, 12:15 PM.” Eachtailored option may be associated and/or displayed with a reservationtime, as shown, and the consumer invited to message back the option, ifany, in which he is most interested.

In various embodiments, an SDE may receive a selection of tailoredcontent (e.g., one of the tailored options, as shown), based upon whichthe SDE may reserve, in this example, the selected restaurant (e.g.,Odeon at 12:00 PM, Tiny at 12:00 PM, or Patio at 12:15 PM) and/or cancelreservations for the restaurant options that the consumer does notselect (step 510). Having reserved the selected tailored option (and/ormore broadly, having acted in response to selection of tailoredcontent), an SDE may transmit a confirmation message to a consumer toconfirm the selected reservation (step 512). In addition, in variousembodiments, a consumer and/or the consumer's web client 302 may(manually or automatically) set a reminder in response to a confirmationmessage.

Moreover, in various embodiments, a confirmation and/or tailored contentmay include a hyperlink or “link” and/or be embedded with a uniformresource locator (“URL”), which a consumer may select or “click on” toreceive and/or review additional detail related to the tailored content.For example, where tailored content comprises a plurality of tailoredrestaurant options, as shown above, a link may be associated with eachof the tailored restaurants (e.g., the link may comprise a link to eachtailored restaurant's website). Similarly, a link may comprise a link toa map associated with tailored content (e.g., a link may be associatedwith a map of the area surrounding a selected option) and/or a link tofeedback or reviews of an item associated with the tailored content.

In addition, in various embodiments, although a message based servicedialog is described above with reference to a request by a consumer fortailored content, in various embodiments, as described herein, a messagebased service dialog (like an application based service dialog and amagazine based service dialog) may be initiated by an SDE (e.g., inresponse to an event and/or based upon a variety of other information,such as a location of a consumer, a time of day, a consumer profile,etc.) For example, in various embodiments, an SDE may initiate a servicedialog (of any type) based upon a location of a consumer (e.g., a GPSlocation associated with web client 302). More particularly, in variousembodiments, an SDE may identify and deliver tailored content (e.g., atailored offer or option) to a consumer based upon a consumer profileand a location of the consumer. Thus, to illustrate, a consumer profileindicating a preference for coffee may trigger the identification anddelivery of tailored content related to coffee (e.g., a Starbucks offer)based upon a physical proximity of the consumer associated with theprofile to a brick and mortar Starbucks location.

Further still, in various embodiments, a consumer may not only message arequest for tailored content to an SDE, but search for tailored content(e.g., via a search tool). A consumer may search, as described herein,via any type of service dialog, including a message based servicedialog, an application based service dialog, and/or a magazine basedservice dialog. Moreover, in various embodiments, a consumer may search,for example, by keyword, using a voice recognition feature associatedwith web client 302, by category of item and/or content, based upon asearch history, and the like.

Referring now to FIGS. 6, 9A, 9B, and 9C, a process 600 and screenshots900A, 900B, and 900C are shown for identifying and/or deliveringtailored content based upon an application based service dialog. Anapplication based service dialog may, in various embodiments, comprise aservice dialog which takes place, in full or in part, via an applicationand/or micro-application (e.g., as described herein) associated with aweb client 302. As shown, an SDE may identify and/or deliver tailoredcontent (as described herein) based upon a variety of information and/orcriteria (e.g., a request by a consumer for tailored content, a locationof the consumer, a time of day, an event, a consumer profile, etc.)Thus, in various embodiments and for example, an SDE may identifytailored content based upon an event, such as a reminder. As describedherein, an event such as a reminder may be based upon a variety ofcriteria. However, to illustrate, a reminder may be set by a consumerand/or an SDE in response to a confirmation of a tailored option (asdescribed above). Likewise, an event like a reminder may be based upon acalendar of the consumer, such as a calendar associated with theconsumer's web client 302, and/or an event such as a reminder may bebased upon a consumer profile (step 602).

To illustrate further, an SDE may determine, based upon an event, suchas a calendared event like a reminder, that the birthday of the spouseof the consumer is approaching (see FIG. 9A). Thus, an SDE may, forexample, display a reminder to the consumer indicating that the birthdayof the consumer's spouse is upcoming. In various embodiments, theconsumer may be presented with an option to receive and/or reviewtailored content for the birthday of the consumer's spouse. However, invarious embodiments, the consumer may not be presented with such anoption; rather, an SDE may simply identify and/or deliver tailoredcontent, as described herein, to the consumer based upon thedetermination. Accordingly, in various embodiments, an SDE may identifytailored content (e.g., a show or a concert, a restaurant, an event,etc.) in response to making a determination that an event is coming up,e.g., that a consumer's spouse's birthday is near (step 604).

Tailored content may be identified, as described herein, based upon acomparison of a consumer profile to content. Moreover, in variousembodiments (e.g., where an event or reminder concerns an individualother than the consumer, and/or where a consumer is associated with asocial network including, for example, children or a spouse of theconsumer), tailored content may be identified based upon a consumerprofile of the consumer and/or a consumer profile of the individualother than the consumer (e.g., the consumer's children and/or spouse).Thus, with respect to the foregoing example, where a consumer profile ofthe consumer indicates that the consumer likes Italian food but aconsumer profile of the spouse indicates that the spouse prefersseafood, an SDE may not identify tailored content related to diningRather, where for example, both of the consumer profiles of the consumerand the consumer's spouse both include a preference for opera, an SDEmay identify tailored content related to the opera. Having identifiedtailored content, an SDE may, as described herein, transmit the tailoredcontent (e.g., via web client 302 and/or an application associated withweb client 302) to the consumer (step 606).

Moreover, in various embodiments, an SDE may initiate a message basedservice dialog, as described herein, in which the SDE reminds theconsumer that a particular event may be upcoming (e.g., based upon acalendar of the consumer and/or a consumer profile) (step 606 and/orFIG. 9B). This may occur during an application based service dialog. Forexample, where an SDE determines that a consumer's spouse's birthday isupcoming, as described above, the SDE may initiate a message basedservice dialog to remind the consumer about the upcoming birthday and/orto inquire whether the consumer would like to purchase, for example, abirthday gift or flowers for his spouse, whether the consumer would liketo hire a babysitter, and the like. Thus, an application based servicedialog may include and/or transition into a message based servicedialog, as described herein.

Whether a consumer engages in a message based service dialog (e.g.,receives a message based reminder) and/or an application based servicedialog (e.g., receives an application based reminder), a consumer may,as described herein, select tailored content in which the consumer isinterested, and the SDE may receive the consumer's selection (step 608).Thus, with regard to the foregoing example, a consumer may select anoption to purchase opera tickets for his spouse's birthday and/or topurchase flowers for his spouse's birthday. An SDE may further, asdescribed herein, reserve a selected option and/or facilitate a purchasetransaction associated with and/or payment for a selected option.

Moreover, as described herein, an SDE may transmit a confirmation to aconsumer, which may or may not include detail regarding confirmation(step 610). Similarly, as described herein, tailored content transmittedto a consumer may include additional data as well. Thus, for example,where a consumer receives and/or selects an option to purchase operatickets, the option may include a link to a ticketing website, withwhich the consumer may review detail about the opera, review and/orselect seats for the opera, and the like (see FIG. 9C). Thus, in variousembodiments, a service dialog may function as a tool to assist aconsumer with specific details related to tailored content.

Referring now to FIGS. 7, 10A, 10B, and 10C, a process 700 andscreenshots 1000A, 1000B, and 1000C are shown for identifying and/ordelivering tailored content based upon a magazine based service dialog.In various embodiments, as used herein, a “magazine” may refer to anycontent that is presented electronically and/or capable of beingpresented electronically. For example, a magazine may comprise awebsite, a uniform resource locator (“URL”), a document (e.g., aMICROSOFT® Word document, a MICROSOFT® Excel document, an Adobe .pdfdocument, etc.), an “ebook,” an “emagazine,” an application ormicro-application (as described herein), a text message, an email, andthe like. Thus, a magazine based service dialog may, in variousembodiments, comprise a service dialog which takes place, in full or inpart, via a magazine displayed by web client 302. Accordingly, as shownand as described herein with regard to other types of service dialogs,an SDE may identify and/or deliver tailored content to a consumer inresponse to a variety of criteria (e.g., a request by a consumer fortailored content, a location of the consumer, a time of day, an event, aconsumer profile, etc.) (step 702).

To illustrate, an SDE may identify tailored content, as describedherein, based upon, for example, a consumer profile, which may include apreference and/or subpreference (as described herein) for travel, forexample, related to skiing in Colorado during the month of January (see,e.g., FIG. 2) and/or a preference and/or subpreference for tropicalvacations. The SDE may identify, based upon such a consumer profile,tailored content (such as an article or publication) related to aparticular tropical location (e.g., as shown at FIG. 10A, the Maldives).A consumer may thus, via a magazine based service dialog, read andreview tailored content (e.g., articles) which may be identified basedupon a consumer profile.

Further, in various embodiments, an SDE may identify tailored options(e.g., based upon the consumer profile provided above) for vacations ata variety of ski resorts in Colorado during the month of January (e.g.,Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, etc.). Having identified these options, anSDE may transmit or deliver the options to a consumer (e.g., at theconsumer's web client 302) (step 704, FIG. 10B). In addition, asdescribed herein, an SDE and/or a consumer may initiate a message basedservice dialog with a consumer (i.e., during a magazine based servicedialog), and this may occur, for example, in response to identificationof tailored content and/or in response to a determination that aparticular event (e.g., a consumer's spouse's birthday) is upcoming.

Further, in various embodiments, an SDE may transmit to a web client 302displaying a magazine a variety of information associated with tailoredcontent. For example, with respect to the tailored options discussedabove (e.g., Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge), an SDE may include with thetailored content comprising these options descriptions of each option,reviews of each option, travel data associated with each option (e.g.,flight data, rental car data, lodging data, the prices of lift ticketsfor each option, etc.) Thus, a magazine based service dialog may beadvantageous in that a consumer may be presented with comprehensiveinformation about tailored content. In various embodiments, applicationbased service dialogs and message based service dialogs may includeadditional information, as discussed above, as well.

Having identified and/or delivered tailored content to a consumer, aconsumer may, as described herein, select tailored content in which theconsumer is interested, and the SDE may receive the consumer's selection(step 706). Thus, with regard to the foregoing example, a consumer mayreceive options (e.g., based upon a consumer profile) for vacations at avariety of ski resorts in Colorado during the month of January (e.g.,Vail, Aspen, Breckenridge, etc.), but select an option to take avacation to a particular ski resort in Colorado during the month ofJanuary (e.g., the Vail ski resort).

Continuing, in various embodiments and in response to a selection of aparticular tailored option, for example, an SDE may transmit aconfirmation (which may include additional information, such as a link,as described herein) to a consumer and/or facilitate a purchasetransaction, as described herein, related to the option (step 708).

In various embodiments, as mentioned briefly above, an SDE may tailor orpersonalize a particular magazine (e.g., as described elsewhere herein)such that tailored content is displayed. For example, an SDE may tailora magazine such that a magazine includes one or more sections orportions that are based upon the consumer profile. Thus, where aconsumer profile shows that a consumer is interested in travel, a travelsection of the magazine may be displayed for the consumer and/orspecific tailored content (e.g, one or more articles or publications)may be displayed by a magazine. Moreover, content (e.g., sections,articles, etc.) that is typically unavailable to individuals who are notassociated with consumer profiles may be displayed for a consumer who isassociated with a consumer profile.

Further, in various embodiments, additional tailored content may beidentified and/or delivered. For instance, a consumer may be shown atailored article based upon a consumer profile and/or selection by theconsumer of a tailored section of a magazine. Thus, as an example, aconsumer may be shown a tailored article that gives a review of a newresort in a tropical region (e.g., the Maldives, as shown at FIG. 10A).As described herein, the tailored article may be identified by an SDE asrelevant to the consumer based upon a consumer profile associated withconsumer.

The consumer may review the tailored article, and, in variousembodiments, the magazine may present a tailored offer based upon theconsumer's review of the tailored article (and/or irrespective of theconsumer's review of the tailored article, but based upon, for example,the consumer profile). For example, where the tailored article relates,as described above, to a resort in the Maldives, the consumer may beshown a tailored offer for a vacation package at the resort. Thevacation package may include, to illustrate, a four night stay at theresort plus one night free at the resort (for a total of five nights), adiscounted companion airfare from the Newark, N.J. airport, and an allday dining pass at the resort. The vacation package may include a fivenight stay, as described above, in response to data indicating that theconsumer tends to stay at least five nights in any resort to which theconsumer travels. Likewise, the vacation package may include an all daydining pass and airfare from Newark in response to data indicating thatthe consumer tends to travel with a family member or members forvacation trips, that the consumer has purchased dining packages as partof one or more previous trip purchases, that the consumer typically oroften travels from the Newark, N.J. airport. Similarly, the vacationpackage may be for a stay in the Maldives, because the consumer'sconsumer profile indicates an interest in travel to such areas; and thisindication may be based upon, as discussed herein, a consumer profilegenerated based upon data indicating that the consumer has discussedvisiting the Bahamas on the consumer's Facebook® page, that the consumertypically or often takes vacations during the summertime, which isapproaching, that the consumer appeared to be interested in the tailoredarticle based upon the fact that the consumer lingered for severalminutes on the tailored article (suggesting that the consumer read allor a portion of the tailored article), and/or the like.

Having received the tailored offer, the consumer may, in variousembodiments, select an option to view more information about the offer,which may cause the magazine to show the consumer, for example, termsand conditions associated with the offer, detailed information about theoffer, an option to book the vacation package associated with the offer,and the like (step 716). The consumer may, in addition, book thevacation package through the magazine and/or through a transactionaccount of the consumer, as described herein (step 718).

In various embodiments, a consumer profile and/or tailored content(e.g., a tailored option that a consumer has selected, as describedherein) may be stored by way of the “cloud,” as described above, andmade available to a consumer across a variety of platforms. For example,in various embodiments, a consumer may initiate a message based servicedialog but switch, during the dialog, to an application based servicedialog and/or a magazine based service dialog. Where this occurs, an SDEmay seamlessly reconnect the consumer with the service dialog which isin process, such that the consumer is not forced to initiate a newservice dialog.

In various embodiments, an SDE may transmit tailored content to aconsumer (e.g., tailored offers or options comprising offers, asdescribed herein) from a variety of merchant systems 308. For example,an SDE may require or facilitate bidding between a variety of merchantsystems 308, each of which may be associated with an offer of tailoredcontent. For example, as described above, where a consumer is presentedwith several tailored options (e.g., options to purchase vacations inVail, Aspen, and/or Breckenridge), an SDE may require each merchantsystem 308 to place a bid in association with the tailored option. Thus,merchants may be motivated to offer price reductions and/or upgradeddeals, etc. during a bidding process. Moreover, in various embodiments,an SDE may transmit, organize, or filter selected tailored content basedon a particular criterion and/or set of criteria, e.g., based on a priceassociated with the tailored content. For instance, where tailoredcontent comprises an option or offer, as described, a variety ofmerchant systems 308 may wish to make a consumer an offer for a same,similar, or related item, in which case an SDE may filter or organizetailored options based upon a lowest price or a lowest set of prices.Further, an SDE may accept bids from merchant systems 306 for aspecified bidding period, in response to which a lowest bid or group ofbids may be transmitted to a consumer.

In various embodiments, a plurality of service dialogs may beprioritized. For example, in various embodiments, a plurality of servicedialog requests may be prioritized based upon the tailored content withwhich they are associated. More particularly, a service dialog requestmay be prioritized as relatively urgent (meaning that an SDE should actquickly on the service dialog request) where, for example, the servicedialog request is related to an item, such as a request for arestaurant, as described herein, which cannot or should not be delayed(e.g., because the consumer engaged in the service dialog request ispresumably waiting for a list of tailored options in order to make adining decision). On the other hand, where a service dialog requestrelates to an item, such as a vacation, as described herein, which maybe delayed, an SDE may prioritize the service dialog request as noturgent or as less sensitive to delay. Thus, in other words, a servicedialog request related to an item that will occur prior to an itemassociated with a service dialog request that will occur later may beprioritized over (e.g., as more important or more urgent) the lateroccurring service dialog request. Accordingly, in various embodiments,an SDE may handle service dialog requests based upon a priorityassociated with each service dialog request in a service dialog queue(e.g., an SDE may handle a service dialog request related to diningwithin a threshold amount of time, such as, five, ten, or fifteenminutes, while the SDE may handle a service dialog request related to avacation within a larger threshold amount of time, such as one day).

As described herein, a consumer may wish to make a purchase based upontailored content. In various embodiments, an SDE may communicate apayment option (e.g., an interface option, such as a “button” or anotherselectable option) to a web client 302 for selection by a consumer. Aconsumer may, as described herein, select a payment option in order topurchase an item related to tailored content delivered to the consumeras a result of (any type of) a service dialog. In various embodiments,an SDE may facilitate and/or process a transaction (e.g., a purchasetransaction) in response to selection of a payment option. For example,an SDE may process a transaction based upon a consumer's transactionaccount (which may be stored as part of a consumer profile and/orprovided to an SDE by a consumer via the consumer's web client 302,etc.)

In various embodiments, a transaction may, more specifically, beprocessed according to a variety of options. For example, an SDE mayfacilitate a transaction. Where an SDE facilitates a transaction, aconsumer's anonymity and security may be preserved, and/or a consumermay not be required to manually provide to merchant system 308 certaininformation. For example, an SDE may receive a transaction request froma consumer, and SDE may, in response, communicate the consumer'stransaction account information (e.g., the consumer's transactionaccount number) to merchant system 308 for further processing.Similarly, an SDE may, in response to a transaction request, communicatedirectly with merchant system 308 to process the transaction request,such that merchant system 308 receives payment but is not provided theconsumer's transaction account information. For example, an SDE maytransmit a transaction request to merchant system 308, and merchantsystem 308 may, in response, communicate a reply (e.g., indicating thata requested item is in stock or available). In response, an SDE mayremit payment to merchant system 308, whereupon merchant system 308 mayship or otherwise make available the purchased item to the consumer.

In various embodiments, an SDE may update a consumer profile based uponfeedback and/or feedback data. In various embodiments, an SDE mayreceive feedback by way of any mechanism, as described above, in whichthe SDE generates a consumer profile. For example, in variousembodiments, an SDE may receive feedback from merchant system 308,and/or an SDE may receive feedback as part of a consumer's transactionaccount history. For example, where tailored content is delivered to aconsumer, an SDE may compare the consumer's transaction account historyover the course of a particular period of time (e.g., the previous hour,day, month, etc.) to tailored content delivered to the consumer duringthe same time period. Where, for example, the consumer's transactionaccount history indicates that the consumer purchased an item associatedwith certain tailored content, an SDE may adjust the consumer's consumerprofile (e.g., one or more preferences and/or subpreferences) such thatthe consumer profile is reinforced or associated with a strongerpreference and/or subpreference for content associated with the item.Similarly, where a consumer's transaction account history indicates thata consumer did not purchase an item associated with certain tailoredcontent, an SDE may adjust the consumer's consumer profile such that theconsumer profile is not reinforced or associated with a lesser orreduced preference and/or subpreference for content associated with theitem. An SDE may react in similar fashion to feedback received frommerchant system 308, except that, for example, merchant system 308 may,in various embodiments, provide feedback as to which tailored content aconsumer clicked on or selected (“clickthrough data”). An SDE mayprocess clickthrough data, as described with reference to transactionhistory information, to increase or decrease a consumer's preferenceand/or subpreference for content associated with a particular item.Thus, over time, an SDE may “learn” about and/or refine a consumer'spreferences and/or subpreferences based upon feedback received inrelation to the consumer's purchasing activity, browsing activity,and/or the like.

In various embodiments, an SDE may calculate or measure an effectivenessassociated with tailored content (e.g, an effectiveness of an offer oradvertisement). For example, an SDE may calculate an effectiveness oftailored content based upon a comparison of a consumer's purchasingactivity to the tailored content that was distributed to the consumer.For example, tailored content may be regarded as effective oreffectively tailored where a comparison of the tailored content to aconsumer's transaction history shows that the consumer was exposed tothe tailored content and soon thereafter or later purchased an itemrelated to the tailored content. Moreover, in various embodiments, anSDE may evaluate a consumer's transaction history to ascertain apurchase objective associated with the consumer (e.g., business,pleasure, luxury, necessity, gift, and the like).

Moreover, in various embodiments, an SDE may calculate or measure aneffectiveness and/or a business impact associated with a service dialogsystem 306 by collecting a brand equity metric comprising at least oneof: a number of downloads associated with an application forfacilitating a service dialog, a promoter score of the service dialogsystem 306, a feedback associated with the service dialog system 306, anumber of rewards points awarded to a consumer, social media metricssuch as re-tweets, clicks, check-ins, a number of merchant partners, anumber of pre-sale offers by merchants, a number of rewards points perconsumer (e.g., Platinum member), an market share, and the like. Invarious embodiments, an SDE may further calculate or measure aneffectiveness of a service dialog system 306 by collecting a revenuemetric comprising at least one of: a number of service dialog requestsassociated with a consumer, a number of service dialog requests that arefulfilled by an SDE, an amount purchased per service dialog request, anaverage and total number of card purchases per consumer and/or anaverage purchase price per consumer, a number of consumers participatingin a service dialog system, a tenure of membership associated withconsumers participating in a service dialog system, a cost associatedwith the an SDE (e.g., a cost per consumer, a cost per service dialogagent, an acquisition cost of new consumers, and the like). Continuing,in various embodiments, an SDE may further calculate or measure aneffectiveness of a service dialog system 306 by analyzing at least oneof: the brand equity metric and the revenue metric to demonstrate abusiness impact associated with the service dialog system 306.

In various embodiments, an SDE may enable and/or facilitate socialnetworking between consumers. In various embodiments, consumers may belinked as members of a same social network by SDE. For example, a firstconsumer and a second consumer may specify and/or agree that they aremembers of a same or similar social network (e.g., a first consumer maysend a second consumer a request to join the first consumer's socialnetwork, which the second consumer may accept).

Moreover, in various embodiments, an SDE may permit a consumer who hasreceived tailored content to share the tailored content with anotherconsumer (e.g., a consumer associated with a consumer profile,hereinafter referred to, for simplicity, as a “receiving consumer”). Forexample, in various embodiments, a consumer may receive a tailoredoption in response to a selection of such an option (e.g., a consumermay receive a confirmation of tickets to an opera performance, asdescribed above), which the consumer may forward to another consumerassociated with the SDE (e.g., through a consumer profile), such as, forexample, the consumer's spouse. The receiving consumer may reviewtailored content, as described herein, via a web client 302 (e.g., via amagazine or magazine based service dialog).

Thus, with system 300, consumers may receive tailored content by way ofa service dialog and based upon a variety of criteria, including, forexample, a consumer profile. Where consumers wish to make purchases fromone or more merchants, system 300 may reduce or eliminate the process ofmanual data entry typically required (e.g., consumers may not berequired to enter shipping and/or billing information, transactionaccount information, and the like). System 300 may further safeguardconsumer privacy during a purchasing process by processing a transactionrequest such that a merchant system 308 is not provided PII such as, forexample, consumer transaction account information.

Systems, methods and computer program products are provided. In thedetailed description herein, references to “various embodiments”, “oneembodiment”, “an embodiment”, “an example embodiment”, etc., indicatethat the embodiment described may include a particular feature,structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarilyinclude the particular feature, structure, or characteristic. Moreover,such phrases are not necessarily referring to the same embodiment.Further, when a particular feature, structure, or characteristic isdescribed in connection with an embodiment, it is submitted that it iswithin the knowledge of one skilled in the art to effect such feature,structure, or characteristic in connection with other embodimentswhether or not explicitly described.

In various embodiments, the methods described herein are implementedusing the various particular machines described herein. The methodsdescribed herein may be implemented using the below particular machines,and those hereinafter developed, in any suitable combination, as wouldbe appreciated immediately by one skilled in the art. Further, as isunambiguous from this disclosure, the methods described herein mayresult in various transformations of certain articles.

For the sake of brevity, conventional data networking, applicationdevelopment and other functional aspects of the systems (and componentsof the individual operating components of the systems) may not bedescribed in detail herein. Furthermore, the connecting lines shown inthe various figures contained herein are intended to represent exemplaryfunctional relationships and/or physical couplings between the variouselements. It should be noted that many alternative or additionalfunctional relationships or physical connections may be present in apractical system.

The various system components discussed herein may include one or moreof the following: a host server or other computing systems including aprocessor for processing digital data; a memory coupled to the processorfor storing digital data; an input digitizer coupled to the processorfor inputting digital data; an application program stored in the memoryand accessible by the processor for directing processing of digital databy the processor; a display device coupled to the processor and memoryfor displaying information derived from digital data processed by theprocessor; and a plurality of databases. Various databases used hereinmay include: client data; merchant data; financial institution data;and/or like data useful in the operation of the system. As those skilledin the art will appreciate, user computer may include an operatingsystem (e.g., WINDOWS® NT, WINDOWS® 95/98/2000, WINDOWS® XP, WINDOWS®Vista, WINDOWS® 7, OS2, UNIX, Linux, Solaris, MacOS, etc.) as well asvarious conventional support software and drivers typically associatedwith computers. A user may include any individual, business, entity,government organization, software and/or hardware that interact with asystem.

In various embodiments, various components, modules, and/or engines ofsystem 100 may be implemented as micro-applications or micro-apps.Micro-apps are typically deployed in the context of a mobile operatingsystem, including for example, a Palm mobile operating system, aWINDOWS® mobile operating system, an Android Operating System, AppleiOS, a Blackberry operating system and the like. The micro-app may beconfigured to leverage the resources of the larger operating system andassociated hardware via a set of predetermined rules which govern theoperations of various operating systems and hardware resources. Forexample, where a micro-app desires to communicate with a device ornetwork other than the mobile device or mobile operating system, themicro-app may leverage the communication protocol of the operatingsystem and associated device hardware under the predetermined rules ofthe mobile operating system. Moreover, where the micro-app desires aninput from a user, the micro-app may be configured to request a responsefrom the operating system which monitors various hardware components andthen communicates a detected input from the hardware to the micro-app.

The system contemplates uses in association with web services, utilitycomputing, pervasive and individualized computing, security and identitysolutions, autonomic computing, cloud computing, commodity computing,mobility and wireless solutions, open source, biometrics, grid computingand/or mesh computing.

Any databases discussed herein may include relational, hierarchical,graphical, or object-oriented structure and/or any other databaseconfigurations. Common database products that may be used to implementthe databases include DB2 by IBM (Armonk, N.Y.), various databaseproducts available from ORACLE® Corporation (Redwood Shores, Calif.),MICROSOFT® Access or MICROSOFT® SQL Server by MICROSOFT® Corporation(Redmond, Wash.), MySQL by MySQL AB (Uppsala, Sweden), or any othersuitable database product. Moreover, the databases may be organized inany suitable manner, for example, as data tables or lookup tables. Eachrecord may be a single file, a series of files, a linked series of datafields or any other data structure. Association of certain data may beaccomplished through any desired data association technique such asthose known or practiced in the art. For example, the association may beaccomplished either manually or automatically. Automatic associationtechniques may include, for example, a database search, a databasemerge, GREP, AGREP, SQL, using a key field in the tables to speedsearches, sequential searches through all the tables and files, sortingrecords in the file according to a known order to simplify lookup,and/or the like. The association step may be accomplished by a databasemerge function, for example, using a “key field” in pre-selecteddatabases or data sectors. Various database tuning steps arecontemplated to optimize database performance. For example, frequentlyused files such as indexes may be placed on separate file systems toreduce In/Out (“I/O”) bottlenecks.

More particularly, a “key field” partitions the database according tothe high-level class of objects defined by the key field. For example,certain types of data may be designated as a key field in a plurality ofrelated data tables and the data tables may then be linked on the basisof the type of data in the key field. The data corresponding to the keyfield in each of the linked data tables is preferably the same or of thesame type. However, data tables having similar, though not identical,data in the key fields may also be linked by using AGREP, for example.In accordance with one embodiment, any suitable data storage techniquemay be utilized to store data without a standard format. Data sets maybe stored using any suitable technique, including, for example, storingindividual files using an ISO/IEC 7816-4 file structure; implementing adomain whereby a dedicated file is selected that exposes one or moreelementary files containing one or more data sets; using data setsstored in individual files using a hierarchical filing system; data setsstored as records in a single file (including compression, SQLaccessible, hashed via one or more keys, numeric, alphabetical by firsttuple, etc.); Binary Large Object (BLOB); stored as ungrouped dataelements encoded using ISO/IEC 7816-6 data elements; stored as ungroupeddata elements encoded using ISO/IEC Abstract Syntax Notation (ASN.1) asin ISO/IEC 8824 and 8825; and/or other proprietary techniques that mayinclude fractal compression methods, image compression methods, etc.

In various embodiments, the ability to store a wide variety ofinformation in different formats is facilitated by storing theinformation as a BLOB. Thus, any binary information can be stored in astorage space associated with a data set. As discussed above, the binaryinformation may be stored on the financial transaction instrument orexternal to but affiliated with the financial transaction instrument.The BLOB method may store data sets as ungrouped data elements formattedas a block of binary via a fixed memory offset using either fixedstorage allocation, circular queue techniques, or best practices withrespect to memory management (e.g., paged memory, least recently used,etc.). By using BLOB methods, the ability to store various data setsthat have different formats facilitates the storage of data associatedwith the financial transaction instrument by multiple and unrelatedowners of the data sets. For example, a first data set which may bestored may be provided by a first party, a second data set which may bestored may be provided by an unrelated second party, and yet a thirddata set which may be stored, may be provided by an third partyunrelated to the first and second party. Each of these three exemplarydata sets may contain different information that is stored usingdifferent data storage formats and/or techniques. Further, each data setmay contain subsets of data that also may be distinct from othersubsets.

As stated above, in various embodiments, the data can be stored withoutregard to a common format. However, in one exemplary embodiment, thedata set (e.g., BLOB) may be annotated in a standard manner whenprovided for manipulating the data onto the financial transactioninstrument. The annotation may comprise a short header, trailer, orother appropriate indicator related to each data set that is configuredto convey information useful in managing the various data sets. Forexample, the annotation may be called a “condition header”, “header”,“trailer”, or “status”, herein, and may comprise an indication of thestatus of the data set or may include an identifier correlated to aspecific issuer or owner of the data. In one example, the first threebytes of each data set BLOB may be configured or configurable toindicate the status of that particular data set; e.g., LOADED,INITIALIZED, READY, BLOCKED, REMOVABLE, or DELETED. Subsequent bytes ofdata may be used to indicate for example, the identity of the issuer,user, transaction/membership account identifier or the like. Each ofthese condition annotations are further discussed herein.

The data set annotation may also be used for other types of statusinformation as well as various other purposes. For example, the data setannotation may include security information establishing access levels.The access levels may, for example, be configured to permit only certainindividuals, levels of employees, companies, or other entities to accessdata sets, or to permit access to specific data sets based on thetransaction, merchant, issuer, user or the like. Furthermore, thesecurity information may restrict/permit only certain actions such asaccessing, modifying, and/or deleting data sets. In one example, thedata set annotation indicates that only the data set owner or the userare permitted to delete a data set, various identified users may bepermitted to access the data set for reading, and others are altogetherexcluded from accessing the data set. However, other access restrictionparameters may also be used allowing various entities to access a dataset with various permission levels as appropriate.

The data, including the header or trailer may be received by a standalone interaction device configured to add, delete, modify, or augmentthe data in accordance with the header or trailer. As such, in oneembodiment, the header or trailer is not stored on the transactiondevice along with the associated issuer-owned data but instead theappropriate action may be taken by providing to the transactioninstrument user at the stand alone device, the appropriate option forthe action to be taken. The system may contemplate a data storagearrangement wherein the header or trailer, or header or trailer history,of the data is stored on the transaction instrument in relation to theappropriate data.

One skilled in the art will also appreciate that, for security reasons,any databases, systems, devices, servers or other components of thesystem may consist of any combination thereof at a single location or atmultiple locations, wherein each database or system includes any ofvarious suitable security features, such as firewalls, access codes,encryption, decryption, compression, decompression, and/or the like.

Encryption may be performed by way of any of the techniques nowavailable in the art or which may become available—e.g., Twofish, RSA,El Gamal, Schorr signature, DSA, PGP, PKI, and symmetric and asymmetriccryptosystems.

The computing unit of the web client may be further equipped with anInternet browser connected to the Internet or an intranet using standarddial-up, cable, DSL or any other Internet protocol known in the art.Transactions originating at a web client may pass through a firewall inorder to prevent unauthorized access from users of other networks.Further, additional firewalls may be deployed between the varyingcomponents of CMS to further enhance security.

Firewall may include any hardware and/or software suitably configured toprotect CMS components and/or enterprise computing resources from usersof other networks. Further, a firewall may be configured to limit orrestrict access to various systems and components behind the firewallfor web clients connecting through a web server. Firewall may reside invarying configurations including Stateful Inspection, Proxy based,access control lists, and Packet Filtering among others. Firewall may beintegrated within an web server or any other CMS components or mayfurther reside as a separate entity. A firewall may implement networkaddress translation (“NAT”) and/or network address port translation(“NAPT”). A firewall may accommodate various tunneling protocols tofacilitate secure communications, such as those used in virtual privatenetworking. A firewall may implement a demilitarized zone (“DMZ”) tofacilitate communications with a public network such as the Internet. Afirewall may be integrated as software within an Internet server, anyother application server components or may reside within anothercomputing device or may take the form of a standalone hardwarecomponent.

The computers discussed herein may provide a suitable website or otherInternet-based graphical user interface which is accessible by users. Inone embodiment, the MICROSOFT® Internet Information Server (IIS),MICROSOFT® Transaction Server (MTS), and MICROSOFT® SQL Server, are usedin conjunction with the MICROSOFT® operating system, MICROSOFT® NT webserver software, a MICROSOFT® SQL Server database system, and aMICROSOFT® Commerce Server. Additionally, components such as Access orMICROSOFT® SQL Server, ORACLE®, Sybase, Informix MySQL, Interbase, etc.,may be used to provide an Active Data Object (ADO) compliant databasemanagement system. In one embodiment, the Apache web server is used inconjunction with a Linux operating system, a MySQL database, and thePerl, PHP, and/or Python programming languages.

Any of the communications, inputs, storage, databases or displaysdiscussed herein may be facilitated through a website having web pages.The term “web page” as it is used herein is not meant to limit the typeof documents and applications that might be used to interact with theuser. For example, a typical website might include, in addition tostandard HTML documents, various forms, Java applets, JavaScript, activeserver pages (ASP), common gateway interface scripts (CGI), extensiblemarkup language (XML), dynamic HTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), AJAX(Asynchronous Javascript And XML), helper applications, plug-ins, andthe like. A server may include a web service that receives a requestfrom a web server, the request including a URL and an IP address(123.56.789.234). The web server retrieves the appropriate web pages andsends the data or applications for the web pages to the IP address. Webservices are applications that are capable of interacting with otherapplications over a communications means, such as the internet. Webservices are typically based on standards or protocols such as XML,SOAP, AJAX, WSDL and UDDI. Web services methods are well known in theart, and are covered in many standard texts. See, e.g., ALEX NGHIEM, ITWEB SERVICES: A ROADMAP FOR THE ENTERPRISE (2003), hereby incorporatedby reference.

Middleware may include any hardware and/or software suitably configuredto facilitate communications and/or process transactions betweendisparate computing systems. Middleware components are commerciallyavailable and known in the art. Middleware may be implemented throughcommercially available hardware and/or software, through custom hardwareand/or software components, or through a combination thereof. Middlewaremay reside in a variety of configurations and may exist as a standalonesystem or may be a software component residing on the Internet server.Middleware may be configured to process transactions between the variouscomponents of an application server and any number of internal orexternal systems for any of the purposes disclosed herein. WebSphere MQ™(formerly MQSeries) by IBM, Inc. (Armonk, N.Y.) is an example of acommercially available middleware product. An Enterprise Service Bus(“ESB”) application is another example of middleware.

Practitioners will also appreciate that there are a number of methodsfor displaying data within a browser-based document. Data may berepresented as standard text or within a fixed list, scrollable list,drop-down list, editable text field, fixed text field, pop-up window,and the like. Likewise, there are a number of methods available formodifying data in a web page such as, for example, free text entry usinga keyboard, selection of menu items, check boxes, option boxes, and thelike.

The system and method may be described herein in terms of functionalblock components, screen shots, optional selections and variousprocessing steps. It should be appreciated that such functional blocksmay be realized by any number of hardware and/or software componentsconfigured to perform the specified functions. For example, the systemmay employ various integrated circuit components, e.g., memory elements,processing elements, logic elements, look-up tables, and the like, whichmay carry out a variety of functions under the control of one or moremicroprocessors or other control devices. Similarly, the softwareelements of the system may be implemented with any programming orscripting language such as C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, VBScript,Macromedia Cold Fusion, COBOL, MICROSOFT® Active Server Pages, assembly,PERL, PHP, awk, Python, Visual Basic, SQL Stored Procedures, PL/SQL, anyUNIX shell script, and extensible markup language (XML) with the variousalgorithms being implemented with any combination of data structures,objects, processes, routines or other programming elements. Further, itshould be noted that the system may employ any number of conventionaltechniques for data transmission, signaling, data processing, networkcontrol, and the like. Still further, the system could be used to detector prevent security issues with a client-side scripting language, suchas JavaScript, VBScript or the like. For a basic introduction ofcryptography and network security, see any of the following references:(1) “Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms, And Source Code In C,”by Bruce Schneier, published by John Wiley & Sons (second edition,1995); (2) “Java Cryptography” by Jonathan Knudson, published byO'Reilly & Associates (1998); (3) “Cryptography & Network Security:Principles & Practice” by William Stallings, published by Prentice Hall;all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.

With further regard to terms such as “consumer,” “customer,” “merchant,”and the like, each of these participants may be equipped with acomputing device in order to interact with the system and facilitateonline commerce transactions. A consumer or customer may have acomputing unit in the form of a personal computer, although other typesof computing units may be used including laptops, notebooks, hand heldcomputers, set-top boxes, cellular telephones, touch-tone telephones andthe like. A merchant may have a computing unit implemented in the formof a computer-server, although other implementations are contemplated bythe system. A bank may have a computing center shown as a main framecomputer. However, the bank computing center may be implemented in otherforms, such as a mini-computer, a PC server, a network of computerslocated in the same of different geographic locations, or the like.Moreover, the system contemplates the use, sale or distribution of anygoods, services or information over any network having similarfunctionality described herein

A merchant computer and/or a bank computer may be interconnected via asecond network, referred to as a payment network. The payment networkwhich may be part of certain transactions represents existingproprietary networks that presently accommodate transactions for creditcards, debit cards, and other types of financial/banking cards. Thepayment network is a closed network that is assumed to be secure fromeavesdroppers. Exemplary transaction networks may include the AmericanExpress®, VisaNet® and the Veriphone® networks.

An electronic commerce system may be implemented at the customer andissuing bank. In an exemplary implementation, the electronic commercesystem may be implemented as computer software modules loaded onto thecustomer computer and the banking computing center. The merchantcomputer may not require any additional software to participate in theonline commerce transactions supported by the online commerce system.

As will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, the systemmay be embodied as a customization of an existing system, an add-onproduct, a processing apparatus executing upgraded software, a standalone system, a distributed system, a method, a data processing system,a device for data processing, and/or a computer program product.Accordingly, any portion of the system or a module may take the form ofa processing apparatus executing code, an internet based embodiment, anentirely hardware embodiment, or an embodiment combining aspects of theinternet, software and hardware. Furthermore, the system may take theform of a computer program product on a computer-readable storage mediumhaving computer-readable program code means embodied in the storagemedium. Any suitable computer-readable storage medium may be utilized,including hard disks, CD-ROM, optical storage devices, magnetic storagedevices, and/or the like.

The system and method is described herein with reference to screenshots, block diagrams and flowchart illustrations of methods, apparatus(e.g., systems), and computer program products according to variousembodiments. It will be understood that each functional block of theblock diagrams and the flowchart illustrations, and combinations offunctional blocks in the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations,respectively, can be implemented by computer program instructions.

These computer program instructions may be loaded onto a general purposecomputer, special purpose computer, or other programmable dataprocessing apparatus to produce a machine, such that the instructionsthat execute on the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus create means for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks. These computer program instructions may alsobe stored in a computer-readable memory that can direct a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the function specified in the flowchart block or blocks.The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series ofoperational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmableapparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that theinstructions which execute on the computer or other programmableapparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks.

Accordingly, functional blocks of the block diagrams and flowchartillustrations support combinations of means for performing the specifiedfunctions, combinations of steps for performing the specified functions,and program instruction means for performing the specified functions. Itwill also be understood that each functional block of the block diagramsand flowchart illustrations, and combinations of functional blocks inthe block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, can be implemented byeither special purpose hardware-based computer systems which perform thespecified functions or steps, or suitable combinations of specialpurpose hardware and computer instructions. Further, illustrations ofthe process flows and the descriptions thereof may make reference touser windows, webpages, websites, web forms, prompts, etc. Practitionerswill appreciate that the illustrated steps described herein may comprisein any number of configurations including the use of windows, webpages,web forms, popup windows, prompts and the like. It should be furtherappreciated that the multiple steps as illustrated and described may becombined into single webpages and/or windows but have been expanded forthe sake of simplicity. In other cases, steps illustrated and describedas single process steps may be separated into multiple webpages and/orwindows but have been combined for simplicity.

The term “non-transitory” is to be understood to remove only propagatingtransitory signals per se from the claim scope and does not relinquishrights to all standard computer-readable media that are not onlypropagating transitory signals per se. Stated another way, the meaningof the term “non-transitory computer-readable medium” should beconstrued to exclude only those types of transitory computer-readablemedia which were found in In Re Nuijten to fall outside the scope ofpatentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. §101.

Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have beendescribed herein with regard to specific embodiments. However, thebenefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any elements that maycause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become morepronounced are not to be construed as critical, required, or essentialfeatures or elements of the disclosure. The scope of the disclosure isaccordingly to be limited by nothing other than the appended claims, inwhich reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean“one and only one” unless explicitly so stated, but rather “one ormore.” Moreover, where a phrase similar to ‘at least one of A, B, and C’or ‘at least one of A, B, or C’ is used in the claims or specification,it is intended that the phrase be interpreted to mean that A alone maybe present in an embodiment, B alone may be present in an embodiment, Calone may be present in an embodiment, or that any combination of theelements A, B and C may be present in a single embodiment; for example,A and B, A and C, B and C, or A and B and C. Although the disclosureincludes a method, it is contemplated that it may be embodied ascomputer program instructions on a tangible computer-readable carrier,such as a magnetic or optical memory or a magnetic or optical disk. Allstructural, chemical, and functional equivalents to the elements of theabove-described exemplary embodiments that are known to those ofordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by referenceand are intended to be encompassed by the present claims. Moreover, itis not necessary for a device or method to address each and everyproblem sought to be solved by the present disclosure, for it to beencompassed by the present claims. Furthermore, no element, component,or method step in the present disclosure is intended to be dedicated tothe public regardless of whether the element, component, or method stepis explicitly recited in the claims. No claim element herein is to beconstrued under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, unlessthe element is expressly recited using the phrase “means for.” As usedherein, the terms “comprises”, “comprising”, or any other variationthereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that aprocess, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elementsdoes not include only those elements but may include other elements notexpressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, orapparatus.

The system may include or interface with any of the foregoing accounts,devices, and/or a transponder and reader (e.g. RFID reader) in RFcommunication with the transponder (which may include a fob), orcommunications between an initiator and a target enabled by near fieldcommunications (NFC). Typical devices may include, for example, a keyring, tag, card, cell phone, wristwatch or any such form capable ofbeing presented for interrogation. Moreover, the system, computing unitor device discussed herein may include a “pervasive computing device,”which may include a traditionally non-computerized device that isembedded with a computing unit. Examples may include watches, Internetenabled kitchen appliances, restaurant tables embedded with RF readers,wallets or purses with imbedded transponders, etc. Furthermore, a deviceor financial transaction instrument may have electronic andcommunications functionality enabled, for example, by: a network ofelectronic circuitry that is printed or otherwise incorporated onto orwithin the transaction instrument (and typically referred to as a “smartcard”); a fob having a transponder and an RFID reader; and/or near fieldcommunication (NFC) technologies. For more information regarding NFC,refer to the following specifications all of which are incorporated byreference herein: ISO/IEC 18092/ECMA-340, Near Field CommunicationInterface and Protocol-1 (NFCIP-1); ISO/IEC 21481/ECMA-352, Near FieldCommunication Interface and Protocol-2 (NFCIP-2); and EMV 4.2.

The account number may be distributed and stored in any form of plastic,electronic, magnetic, radio frequency, wireless, audio and/or opticaldevice capable of transmitting or downloading data from itself to asecond device. A consumer account number may be, for example, asixteen-digit account number, although each credit provider has its ownnumbering system, such as the fifteen-digit numbering system used byAmerican Express. Each company's account numbers comply with thatcompany's standardized format such that the company using afifteen-digit format will generally use three-spaced sets of numbers, asrepresented by the number “0000 000000 00000”. The first five to sevendigits are reserved for processing purposes and identify the issuingbank, account type, etc. In this example, the last (fifteenth) digit isused as a sum check for the fifteen digit number. The intermediaryeight-to-eleven digits are used to uniquely identify the consumer. Amerchant account number may be, for example, any number or alpha-numericcharacters that identify a particular merchant for purposes of accountacceptance, account reconciliation, reporting, or the like.

The phrases consumer, customer, user, account holder, cardmember or thelike shall include any person, group, entity, business, organization,business, software, hardware, machine and/or combination of these, andmay, in various embodiments, be associated with a transaction account,buy merchant offerings offered by one or more merchants using theaccount and/or be legally designated for performing transactions on theaccount, regardless of whether a physical card is associated with theaccount. For example, a consumer may include a transaction accountowner, a transaction account user, an account affiliate, a child accountuser, a subsidiary account user, a beneficiary of an account, acustodian of an account, and/or any other person or entity affiliated orassociated with a transaction account.

For instance, in various embodiments, a “consumer” may comprise anyindividual who interfaces with a service dialog system, as describedherein. A bank may be part of the system, but the bank may representother types of card issuing institutions, such as credit card companies,card sponsoring companies, or third party issuers under contract withfinancial institutions. It is further noted that other participants maybe involved in some phases of the transaction, such as an intermediarysettlement institution, but these participants are not shown.

Phrases and terms similar to “business” or “merchant” may be usedinterchangeably with each other and shall mean any person, entity,distributor system, software and/or hardware that is a provider, brokerand/or any other entity in the distribution chain of goods or services.For example, a merchant may be a grocery store, a retail store, a travelagency, a service provider, an on-line merchant or the like. In variousembodiments, a merchant may request payment for goods sold to a customeror consumer who holds an account with a transaction account issuer.

As used herein, terms such as “transmit,” “communicate” and/or “deliver”may include sending electronic data from one system component to anotherover a network connection. Additionally, as used herein, “data” mayinclude encompassing information such as commands, queries, files, datafor storage, and the like in digital or any other form.

Phrases and terms similar to “item” may include any good, service,information, experience, activity, data, content, access, rental, lease,contribution, account, credit, debit, benefit, right, reward, points,coupons, credits, monetary equivalent, anything of value, something ofminimal or no value, monetary value, non-monetary value and/or the like.

Phrases and terms similar to “account,” “transaction account,”“account,” “account number,” “account code,” and/or “consumer account”may include any account that may be used to facilitate a financialtransaction. These accounts may include any device, code (e.g., one ormore of an authorization/access code, personal identification number(“PIN”), Internet code, other identification code, and/or the like),number, letter, symbol, digital certificate, smart chip, digital signal,analog signal, biometric or other identifier/indicia suitably configuredto allow the consumer to access, interact with or communicate with thesystem. The account number may optionally be located on or associatedwith a rewards account, charge account, credit account, debit account,prepaid account, telephone card, embossed card, smart card, magneticstripe card, bar code card, transponder, radio frequency card or anassociated account.

As used herein, “content” may comprise any data and/or information.Content may comprise one or more items and/or data associated with oneor more items, as discussed elsewhere herein. Content may furthercomprise one or more characteristics or metadata. The characteristics ormetadata associated with content may describe one or more attributesassociated with the content.

Phrases and terms similar to “financial institution” or “transactionaccount issuer” may include any entity that offers transaction accountservices. Although often referred to as a “financial institution,” thefinancial institution may represent any type of bank, lender or othertype of account issuing institution, such as credit card companies, cardsponsoring companies, or third party issuers under contract withfinancial institutions. It is further noted that other participants maybe involved in some phases of the transaction, such as an intermediarysettlement institution.

The terms “payment vehicle,” “financial transaction instrument,”“transaction instrument” and/or the plural form of these terms may beused interchangeably throughout to refer to a financial instrument.

Phrases and terms similar to “internal data” or “closed loop data” mayinclude any data a credit issuer possesses or acquires pertaining to aparticular consumer. Internal data may be gathered before, during, orafter a relationship between the credit issuer and the transactionaccount holder (e.g., the consumer or buyer). Such data may includeconsumer demographic data. Consumer demographic data includes any datapertaining to a consumer. Consumer demographic data may include consumername, address, telephone number, email address, employer and socialsecurity number. Consumer transactional data is any data pertaining tothe particular transactions in which a consumer engages during any giventime period. Consumer transactional data may include, for example,transaction amount, transaction time, transaction vendor/merchant, andtransaction vendor/merchant location. Transaction vendor/merchantlocation may contain a high degree of specificity to a vendor/merchant.For example, transaction vendor/merchant location may include aparticular gasoline filing station in a particular postal code locatedat a particular cross section or address. Also, for example, transactionvendor/merchant location may include a particular web address, such as aUniform Resource Locator (“URL”), an email address and/or an InternetProtocol (“IP”) address for a vendor/merchant. Transactionvendor/merchant, and transaction vendor/merchant location may beassociated with a particular consumer and further associated with setsof consumers. Consumer payment data includes any data pertaining to aconsumer's history of paying debt obligations. Consumer payment data mayinclude consumer payment dates, payment amounts, balance amount, andcredit limit. Internal data may further comprise records of consumerservice calls, complaints, requests for credit line increases,questions, and comments. A record of a consumer service call includes,for example, date of call, reason for call, and any transcript orsummary of the actual call.

Phrases similar to a “payment processor” may include a company (e.g., athird party) appointed (e.g., by a merchant) to handle transactions. Apayment processor may include an issuer, acquirer, authorizer and/or anyother system or entity involved in the transaction process. Paymentprocessors may be broken down into two types: front-end and back-end.Front-end payment processors have connections to various transactionaccounts and supply authorization and settlement services to themerchant banks' merchants. Back-end payment processors acceptsettlements from front-end payment processors and, via The FederalReserve Bank, move money from an issuing bank to the merchant bank. Inan operation that will usually take a few seconds, the payment processorwill both check the details received by forwarding the details to therespective account's issuing bank or card association for verification,and may carry out a series of anti-fraud measures against thetransaction. Additional parameters, including the account's country ofissue and its previous payment history, may be used to gauge theprobability of the transaction being approved. In response to thepayment processor receiving confirmation that the transaction accountdetails have been verified, the information may be relayed back to themerchant, who will then complete the payment transaction. In response tothe verification being denied, the payment processor relays theinformation to the merchant, who may then decline the transaction.Phrases similar to a “payment gateway” or “gateway” may include anapplication service provider service that authorizes payments fore-businesses, online retailers, and/or traditional brick and mortarmerchants. The gateway may be the equivalent of a physical point of saleterminal located in most retail outlets. A payment gateway may protecttransaction account details by encrypting sensitive information, such astransaction account numbers, to ensure that information passes securelybetween the customer and the merchant and also between merchant andpayment processor.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method, comprising: generating, by acomputer-based system configured for processing a service dialog, aconsumer profile; identifying, by the computer-based system, tailoredcontent based upon the consumer profile; and communicating, by thecomputer-based system, the tailored content to the consumer based upon aservice dialog request.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprisinggenerating, by the computer-based system, the consumer profile basedupon a transaction history of the consumer.
 3. The method of claim 1,further comprising updating, by the computer-based system, the consumerprofile based upon a selection of the tailored content by the consumer.4. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating, by thecomputer-based system, the consumer profile based upon merchant data. 5.The method of claim 1, further comprising updating, by thecomputer-based system, the consumer profile in response to a request bya consumer to update the consumer profile.
 6. The method of claim 1,further comprising storing, by the computer-based system, the tailoredcontent a network cloud.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprisingfacilitating, by the computer-based system, payment for an itemassociated with the tailored content.
 8. An article of manufactureincluding a non-transitory, tangible computer readable storage mediumhaving instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by acomputer-based system configured for processing a service dialog, causethe computer-based system to perform operations comprising: generating,by the computer-based system, a consumer profile; identifying, by thecomputer-based system, tailored content based upon the consumer profile;and communicating, by the computer-based system, the tailored content tothe consumer based upon a service dialog request.
 9. The article ofclaim 8, further comprising generating, by the computer-based system,the consumer profile based upon a transaction history of the consumer.10. The article of claim 8, further comprising updating, by thecomputer-based system, the consumer profile based upon a selection ofthe tailored content by the consumer.
 11. The article of claim 8,further comprising generating, by the computer-based system, theconsumer profile based upon merchant data.
 12. The article of claim 8,further comprising updating, by the computer-based system, the consumerprofile in response to a request by a consumer to update the consumerprofile.
 13. The article of claim 8, further comprising storing, by thecomputer-based system, the tailored content a network cloud.
 14. Thearticle of claim 8, further comprising facilitating, by thecomputer-based system, payment for an item associated with the tailoredcontent.
 15. A system comprising: a processor configured for processinga service dialog, a tangible, non-transitory memory configured tocommunicate with the processor, the tangible, non-transitory memoryhaving instructions stored thereon that, in response to execution by theprocessor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:generating, by the processor, a consumer profile; identifying, by theprocessor, tailored content based upon the consumer profile; andcommunicating, by the processor, the tailored content to the consumerbased upon a service dialog request.
 16. The system of claim 15, furthercomprising generating, by the processor, the consumer profile based upona transaction history of the consumer.
 17. The system of claim 15,further comprising updating, by the processor, the consumer profilebased upon a selection of the tailored content by the consumer.
 18. Thesystem of claim 15, further comprising generating, by the processor, theconsumer profile based upon merchant data.
 19. The system of claim 15,further comprising updating, by the processor, the consumer profile inresponse to a request by a consumer to update the consumer profile. 20.The system of claim 15, further comprising facilitating, by theprocessor, payment for an item associated with the tailored content.